Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.

As tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims converge on the Holy Land this week to celebrate the birth of Jesus, senior Israeli rabbis have announced a war on the Christmas tree.

In Jerusalem, the rabbinate has issued a letter warning dozens of hotels in the city that it is “forbidden” by Jewish religious law to erect a tree or stage new year’s parties.

Many hotel owners have taken the warning to heart, fearful that the rabbis may carry out previous threats to damage their businesses by denying them certificates declaring their premises to be “kosher”.

In the coastal city of Haifa, in northern Israel, the rabbi of Israel’s premier technology university has taken a similarly strict line. Elad Dokow, the Technion’s rabbi, ordered that Jewish students boycott their students’ union, after it installed for the first time a modest Christmas tree.

He called the tree “idolatry”, warning that it was a “pagan” symbol that violated the kosher status of the building, including its food hall.

About a fifth of the Technion’s students belong to Israel’s large Palestinian minority.

Issa Kassissieh, a former professional basketball player, is Jerusalem’s Santa Claus. Photo by Jessica Steinberg/Times of Israel

While most of Israel’s Palestinian citizens are Muslim, there are some 130,000 Christians, most of them living in Galilee. Other Palestinian Christians live under occupation in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed in violation of international law.

“This is not about freedom of worship,” Dokow told the Technion’s students. “This is the world’s only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a ‘light unto the nations’ and not to uncritically embrace every idea.”

Rabea Mahajni, a 24-year-old electrical engineering student, said that placing the tree in the union was backed by Palestinian students but had strongly divided opinion among Jewish students and staff. The majority, he said, were against the decision.

“One professor upset [Palestinian] students by taking to Facebook to say that the tree made him uncomfortable, and that those who wanted it should either put one up in their own home or go to Europe,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mahajni added: “This is not really about a Christmas tree. It is about who the tree represents. It is a test of whether Jewish society is willing to accept an Arab minority and our symbols.”

He pointed out that Palestinian students had not objected to the students’ union also marking Hanukkah, referring to the Jewish winter “festival of lights” that this year coincides with Christmas.

Interest in Santa hats

For most of Israel’s history, the festive fir tree was rarely seen outside a handful of communities in Israel with significant Christian populations. But in recent years, the appeal of Christmas celebrations has spread among secular Israeli Jews.

Interest took off two decades ago, after one million Russian-speaking Jews immigrated following the fall of the Soviet Union, said David Bogomolny, a spokesman for Hiddush, which lobbies for religious freedom in Israel.

Many, he told Al Jazeera, had little connection to Jewish religious practice and had adopted local customs in their countries of origin instead.

“The tree [in the former Soviet Union] was very popular but it had nothing to do with Christmas,” he said. “Each home had one as a way to welcome in the new year.”

Nazareth, which claims to host the tallest Christmas tree in the Middle East, has recently become a magnet for many domestic tourists, including Jews, Christians and Muslims. They come to visit the Christmas market, hear carols and buy a Santa hat.

Santa hats are particularly popular at Christmas markets, this one in the Wadi Nisnas neighbourhood of Haifa. Photo by Jorge Novominsky/FLASH90

Haifa and Jaffa, two largely Jewish cities with significant Palestinian Christian populations, have recently started competing. Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv, staged its first Christmas market last year.

Meanwhile, hotels are keen to erect a tree in their lobbies as a way to boost tourism revenue from Christian pilgrims, who comprise the bulk of overseas visitors.

‘No danger’ to Judaism

But the growing popularity of Christmas has upset many Orthodox rabbis, who have significant powers over public space. Bogomolny said that some rabbis were driven by a desire to make the state “as Jewish as possible” to avert it losing its identity.

Others may fear that the proliferation of Christmas trees could lure Israeli Jews towards Christianity.

Wadie Abu Nassar, a spokesman for the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, said that he had noticed an increasing interest from Israeli Jews in Christian festivals, including in some cases requests to attend Christmas mass.

He told Al Jazeera this was not a threat to Judaism, but healthy curiosity. “If we want to live together in peace, we have to understand each other and learn to trust,” he said.

Tree-free Knesset

A Christmas tree in Jerusalem. The chief rabbis’ request appears to contradict guidelines issued by the Chief Rabbinate in 2015, stating that the kashrut certification of hotels could not be revoked based on music, photography, or the displaying of Christmas trees. The guidelines were implemented in response to a petition by Israeli NGO Hiddush*- For Religious Freedom and Equality, demanding that that the existing regulations be changed. Caption from jp updates, Photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90

The controversial status of Christmas in Israel was underscored four years ago when Yair Netanyahu, the 21-year-old son of Israel’s prime minister, caused a minor scandal by being photographed wearing a Santa hat next to a Christmas tree.

The office of Benjamin Netanyahu hurriedly issued a statement saying that Yair had posed as a joke while attending a party hosted by “Christian Zionists who love Israel, and whose children served in the [Israeli army]”.

Two years earlier, Shimon Gapso, the mayor of Upper Nazareth, originally founded for Jews on Nazareth’s land, banned all signs of Christmas in the city’s public places. He has been a vociferous opponent of an influx of Christians from overcrowded Nazareth.

The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has also been declared a Christmas tree-free zone.

In 2013, its speaker rejected a request from Hanna Swaid, then a Palestinian Christian legislator, to erect a tree in the building. Yuli Edelstein said it would evoke “painful memories” of Jewish persecution in Europe and chip away at the state’s Jewish character.

Attack on religious freedoms

Swaid pointed to the prominence of Jewish symbols in public spaces in the United States, including an annual Hanukkah party at the White House, during which the president lights menorah candles.

“Israeli leaders expect the US to be religiously inclusive, but then they refuse to practise the same at home,” he told Al Jazeera.

He also noted that the religious freedoms of the Palestinian minority were under ever greater attack, most notably with the recent drafting of a so-called “muezzin bill”, which would crack down on mosques’ use of loudspeakers for the call to prayer.

“Given this hostile political climate, the battle to gain legitimacy for our religious symbols becomes all the more important,” he said. “Otherwise we face a dark future.”

Threat to kosher status

Nonetheless, there has been a backlash, especially from secular Jews, against the rigid control exercised by Orthodox rabbis.

Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav, overruled the city’s rabbi in 2012 when he tried to ban Christmas trees and new year’s parties. The Jewish new year occurs several months before the Christian one.

And last year, in the face of a legal challenge from Hiddush, the chief rabbinate backed down on threats to revoke the kosher status of businesses that celebrate Christmas.

But while the ban on Christmas trees has been formally lifted, in practice it is still widely enforced, according to Bogomolny.

“The problem is that the chief rabbinate actually has no authority over city rabbis, who can disregard its rulings, as we have seen with the letter issued by the Jerusalem rabbis,” he said.

Most hotels wanted to ignore the prohibition on Christmas trees because it was bad for business, but feared being punished.“It is a problem throughout the country,” he said. “The hotels are afraid to take a stand. If they try to fight it through the courts, it will be costly and could take years to get a ruling.”

One hotel manager in West Jerusalem to whom Al Jazeera spoke on condition of anonymity said he feared “retaliation” from the rabbis.“The letter was clearly intended to intimidate us,” he said. “The Christian tourists are here to celebrate Christmas and we want to help them do it, but not if it costs us our certificate.”

By Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice | December 22, 2016

Prime Minister,

This is still a Christian country, as your colleague David Cameron reminded us not so long ago. But you wouldn’t think so when non-Christian creeds are given exceptional protection and privileges to smooth their ruffled feathers. Your government is even introducing new laws to stifle questions about Israel’s legitimacy and quash criticism of its criminal policies. We have entered a sinister era of censorship and harassment as the gulf between government and public widens.

In an excruciating speech to a Conservative Friends of Israel lunch earlier this month, you told 800 guests that the British government will be marking the centenary of the infamous Balfour Declaration next year “with pride”. Yet that ill-conceived letter by the British foreign secretary caused a running sore in the Middle East that has lasted a hundred years. And Britain’s failure to make amends continues to endanger the whole region and cause grief for millions.

You said some astonishing things too about Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine. For example, Britain stands “very firmly” for a two-state solution and the two sides must “sit down together, without preconditions, and work towards that lasting solution”. It is plain to nearly everyone that this futile and lopsided mantra is a ploy designed to buy Israel all the time it needs to establish enough irreversible ‘facts on the ground’ to ensure permanent annexation. But like all leaders before, you go along with it, And you’re careful not to mention that international law has already spoken and it’s high time for enforcement – or sanctions.

There seems little comprehension among you and your colleagues of the consequences for the Middle East, and indeed the whole world, if Israel is allowed to achieve its ambition to expand its borders to the Nile and the Euphrates.

You even praise Israel for being “a thriving democracy, a beacon of tolerance”, when it is obviously neither. Maybe an ethnocracy, or a theocracy, but certainly no liberal democracy. As for your remark that it is only when you walk through Jerusalem or Tel Aviv that you see a country where people of all religions “are free and equal in the eyes of the law” and “Israel guarantees the rights of people of all religions, races and sexualities, and it wants to enable everyone to flourish”, have you ever walked through East Jerusalem?

What really offends me, though, is your belief that our two countries share “common values”. That’s straight out of Tel Aviv’s hasbara instruction manual. And it is deeply insulting to anyone who lives by Christian values, which are alien to the Israeli regime given its crimes against humanity and cruelty to the indigenous people it terrorises. I don’t suppose too many British people feel they have much in common with a criminal foreign power that tortures children.

However, the speech did provide mild amusement when you unwisely attacked the successful BDS campaign – that’s boycott, divestment and sanctions – calling it wrong and unacceptable and warning that your government would “have no truck with those who subscribe to it”. Two hundred legal scholars and practising lawyers from 15 European countries promptly slapped you down in a statement that BDS is a lawful exercise of freedom of expression and outlawing it undermines a basic human right. One expert pointed out that advocating for BDS is part of the fundamental freedoms protected by the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. Another said BDS is civil society’s response to the international community’s irresponsible failure to act. Repressing it amounts to support for Israel’s violations of international law and a failure to honour the solemn pledge by states to ‘strictly respect the aims and principles of the Charter of the United Nations’.

Of course, if your Israeli friends don’t like BDS, they only have to comply with international law like everyone else, get back behind Israel’s internationally recognised borders and leave the Palestinians alone.

Just think for a moment about the shredded remnants of Palestine, the endless misery in Gaza and the obscene 8-metre wall with gun towers imprisoning Bethlehem and its Christian community – all courtesy of Israel. Remember that in their 2014 blitz on Gaza Israel killed more than 500 children, injured 3,374, left more than 1,500 orphaned and 373,000 in need of psycho-social support.

There are 1.75 million people, including about 800,000 children under 15, packed into the tiny Gaza enclave with no escape. They have suffered horribly under Israeli blockade – a collective punishment which as you know is considered a war crime – for nearly 10 years. And your own ministers report that 90% of Gaza’s water is not fit even for agricultural use. The puzzle is why your government would have any truck with anyone who subscribes to an Israel fan club.

According to Wiki, you are the daughter of an Anglican priest and a regular churchgoer. The Holy Land is the well-spring of your religion, is it not? I wonder what the Good Lord, looking down on the hell-hole Balfour created and Western politicians have perpetuated, thinks of your performance this Christmas.

Death of Geneva format, new format for resolving the Syrian conflict, more facts in the murder of Russia’s Ambassador.

Russia, Iran, Turkey: countries who are deciding the future of Syria. New format for resolving the Syrian conflict has been established on Tuesday.

The US has been pushed out of the Middle East and has lost most of its influence despite of its military presence in Iraq.

Ankara took the role of the mediator with the “opposition” per the Russian government’s request. This completely puts Washington and the EU format out of business. On December 16, the president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev issued a statement: “The Russian and Turkish leaders expressed interest in holding peace negotiations in Astana of the conflicting parties in Syria. Nursultan Nazarbayev supported that initiative and announced his preparedness to provide a platform for such talks in the Kazakh capital.”

The US State Department spokesperson John Kirby during his daily press briefing on December 20th stated that also the US wasn’t a party to the talks on Syria the Secretary of State’s John Kerry was briefed by the Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and by the Foreign Minister of Turkey, there also was a press briefing after the meeting which the US was allowed to attend.

Listen to the first ten minutes of the Kirby trying to calm down the hysterical American journalists who were asking him if the US has lost its influence around the world. He tried to smooth it out and downplayed the simple fact that the US has become irrelevant in the Middle East, despite of its military and secret services operations there.

“The secretary doesn’t see this as a snub at all. He sees it as another multilateral effort to try to get a lasting peace in Syria and he welcomes any progress towards that.”

“We would obviously refute any notion that … the fact that we weren’t at this one meeting is somehow a harbinger or a litmus test for U.S. influence and leadership there or anywhere else around the world.”

“We are not excluded, we are not being sidelined.”

Normally, I wouldn’t post the State department press briefing video, but this one is just too good to miss.

During the meetings on Tuesday the Moscow Declaration to end the Syrian War was adopted without any presence of the US. Russia, Turkey & Iran stated that they are ready to be guarantors in resolving Syrian crisis – Russian defense minister.

It’s clearly reflects Russia’s growing links with Iran and Turkey, despite of the attempt to undermine the process by murdering on Monday the Russia’s ambassador to Turkey.

At this point, the terror attacks on Russia and its allies before major diplomatic events have become routine. However, instead of sidelining those events, these terror attacks bring the major powers in Eurasia, Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, Syria, Kazakhstan, India and everyone else together. Essentially we see in real time how terror attacks serve as catalysis to speed up the process of unification of Eurasia in the process of pushing the US and EU out of the continent, and curbing Israel’s and Saudis’ lust for blood in the region.

Like a wounded monster, the US tries to bring as much harm to Russia as it can. On December 20, Washington announced more political and economic sanctions of Russia this time on gas producer Novatek. Also on the list Crimean Ports, Crimean Railways, Stroiproekt Institute, Transflot, and two vessels bearing the Russian flag “Marshal Zhukov” and “Stalingrad.” Also more sanctions are imposed on the Glavgosexpertiza Rossii, the leading Russian institution dealing with expert reviews of design documents and findings of engineering surveys.

“We will be expanding our lists, we will see how we can respond asymmetrically. We reserve the right to choose the timing, the venue and form of counter-moves the way that will suit us, and the way it will be relevant to our own priorities in the American direction.”

President Putin said that “Karlov died as a soldier. He was an illustrious diplomat, enjoying a very good reputation in the country of his mission, he had good relations with the leadership of Turkey as well as with other political forces that respected him.”

The Russian Ambassador, as we know, had no Russian security detail. In essence, Russian security has not being allowed to operate and to carry arms outside of the mission according to the international practices, it’s the hosting country responsibility to provide the security for the foreign diplomats.

After being wounded, the Ambassador was without medical attention for 25 minutes.

A week ago, the assassin took part in the “protection” of the Russian Embassy, when an anti-Russian meeting in the protest against the liberation of Aleppo was organized near the mission’ building.

While Altintas was not on duty, he used his police identification badge to enter the gallery with a gun, per Hurriyet Daily News.

The metal detectors were used at the entrance to the gallery, but there was no increased security because of the ambassador’s presence.

“This attack is a provocation aimed at disrupting our relations. I condemn it vehemently.” Erdogan

Altintas has not been tied to any Islamic terror organizations, on the contrary there are facts pointing that he was a part of the pro-Washington anti-government putsch, and that he was working with the US and Israel intelligence.

Mert Altintas was later killed during a gunfight with security forces, authorities told Anadolu, the Turkish state-run media agency. The operation to stop Altintas was led by special forces, Anadolu reports. He was shot about 15 minutes after the initial attack.

Russia’s intelligence expressed the dissatisfaction that he was killed, instead of being taken alive.

There are witness accounts, don’t know how credible, saying that he was surrendering when he was killed.

Someone pointed out the terrorist’s last name was Altintas, that could be translated as “gold stone” or Goldstein. Also, there was information that Altintas was actively involved with Turkish neo-liberal organizations in the US like “Young Turks.”

On December 19th, in the wake of assassination President Putin had an emergency meeting with the Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the head of foreign intelligence services Sergei Naryshkin and Alexander Bortnikov, the Director of the FSB.

The spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry said that the Russia’s Ambassador Andrei Karlov was working to establish contacts with the Syrian opposition. He was talking to all sides of the Syrian conflict and was facilitating the dialogue between Syrian government and the opposition. “Consider this, this tragedy takes a completely new dimension.”

Apparently, Karlov’s work with the Syrian opposition somehow was leaked out to the West. On December 1, 2016 the Financial Times reported that Syrian rebels in secret talks with Moscow to end Aleppo fighting. “Turkey-facilitated negotiations without US show how Washington could become sidelined”

The way Erica Solomon phrases it for FT makes Kirby’s statements that the US only wants peace in the region regardless of an authorship of this peace sound like bold-faced lie. This also completely debasing one of the all time favorite Washington’s meme that Russia wants to destroy the “democratic Syrian opposition.”

” Syrian rebels are in secret talks with Russia to end the fighting in Aleppo, according to opposition figures, a development that shows how the US could become sidelined in some of the Middle East’s most pivotal conflicts.”

“The Russians and Turks are talking without the US now. It [Washington] is completely shut out of these talks, and doesn’t even know what’s going on in Ankara,” said one opposition figure, who asked not to be identified.”

This kind of situation couldn’t be tolerated by the Obama’s regime. No wonder that according to the Russia’s officials an assassination of the Ambassador was carried out by the CIA.

I want to use this SITREP to address a couple of issues that I believe are being misunderstood in terms of Russia and Turkey relations.

Turkey has a powerful and very active pro-Washington, pro-Israel and pro-EU opposition. On the top of this, Turkey is heavily infected with NATO and other foreign intelligence operatives, including those who operate as jihadists. The 5th columnists, accompanied by the motley crew of murderers for hire are doing everything, including the demolition of the Turkish economy and the assassination attempts on Erdogan. Those who scream that Russia has to instantly cut off all the relations with ” Turkey the Backstabber” are only helping those neo-liberal interests.

Frankly, if Russia were to cut the diplomatic ties with Turkey today, tomorrow every Russian ambassador would be killed in every country. We are in the middle of the 1st World War in the twenty first century: the American and European war on Russia.

Only, unable to burn down Russian villages, and to hang Russian women and children in their town squares, democrats take down Russian passenger planes and kill ambassadors.

We have been dealing with this European sustained hatred towards Russians for centuries. When it comes to the emotional competency, the long-term hatred is delegated to those parts of human brain that deals with the most primitive skills. For me, this is representative of any average European.

In the US, the large part of the population doesn’t have this hatred and wants to have better relations with Russia, but until recently these people had no voice. The majority of those who have the political power and the media are those with the Brutish, Eastern European, and Israeli roots.

Long story short, the last war with Turkey was over 100 years ago, while we had two major wars with Europe in between. Turkey didn’t attack the Soviet Union during the last Europe’s war on Russia, despite of the Germany’s insistence and the covert British terror attacks on the Turks. Sounds familiar, right?

So, we were able to sustain good relations with Turkey. It’s our ally in the Middle East now, and it has its own very important mission. Only with Turkey, Russia and Iran can lock Europeans and Americans out of the ME, lock Israel and Saudis in, and with this to stabilize the region.

Turkey is developing better relations with the Syrian government, with Iran, and even with China, despite some bitter terror problems. Ergodan is now our guy. He is very smart, he is a patriot, and he wants what the best for his country. He has understood recently that Turkey will be peaceful and prosperous only as a part of a greater Eurasian union.

About Turkish troops in Northern Syria: Turks entered Syria per agreement between them, Russia, Iran and Syrian governments. The issue is very transparent. The US, Israel and EU want to divide Syria, and to create the Northern Syrian land corridor called Kurdistan. Washington was looking to have a complete control over this puppet territory, to control oil and gas routes to Europe, and to set up dry land routes for the military to move closer to the Iran’s, Russia’s, Afghanistan’s, Kazakhstan’s, China’s borders. This corridor would give the Western allies power to interrupt the trade routes, including the Silk Road and the North-South corridor from Russia to India via Iran.

If the north of Syria would be made into a land corridor and was occupied by the Western allies this would eventfully bring complete devastation to the entirety of Eurasia, not just the Middle East.

One after another nations that are still standing would be pushed back into stone age. Kurds, as the agents provocateurs, had already played their parts in the devastation of Iraq and Syria. It was them who went to the UN and cried crocodile tears and demanded the “international community” to punish Saddam for some made up crimes against them. See how Egypt just arrested a group producing videos of “injured children of Aleppo” with fake blood and teddy bears, just to get a glimpse into the industrial production of fake video evidences of nonexistent war crimes.

For the past two centuries, the Kurdish elite has been serving the British crown, and with the same passion and devotion they have laid themselves under Washington.

I have to admit that there are healthy groups of Kurds who want to cooperate with the Syrian and Turkish governments, and who just want to be the normal citizens of their countries.

Those, however, who dream the impossible dream that Washington would create for them a heaven on earth, end up terrorizing Turkey with at least 300 people killed and over thousand of injured, in a course of one year. They have turned a prosperous, peaceful, tourist oriented country into a terror hellhole.

Knowing all this and more, the Syrian government could not start fighting with the Syrian Kurds for obvious reasons, since they are citizens and fight with ISIS. Russia and Iran couldn’t do anything either. The only other country that has the legitimate reason to use military force to bring Kurds to heel is Turkey. That’s why the Turkish troops are in Syria. They are acting as place-holders o make sure that Western troops can’t get there.